Hagai Efrat, 83: Grandfather and former Hapoel Jerusalem team manager

Hagai Efrat, 83, from Rishon Lezion, was fatally wounded in a terrorist attack in Alexandria, Egypt, on October 8, 2023.

In the attack, an Egyptian police officer inspired by the Hamas invasion of southern Israel a day earlier, opened fire on an organized tour group of Israelis at an archaeological site in the city. Alon Shamli and Amnon Bezalel were both killed alongside their local tour guide, while Hagai was seriously wounded.

Hagai was operated on in a local hospital and flown back to Israel later that night. Ten days later, on October 19, he died of his wounds.

Hagai was buried in Holon on October 20. He is survived by his wife, Yaffa, his four children, Eyal, Aviv, Rinat and Galia, and 10 grandchildren.

He was born in Kibbutz Ramat Rachel on the outskirts of Jerusalem in 1940, before the founding of the state, according to a state obituary.

His father, Cpl. Shimshon Efrat – a native of Baku, the now-capital of Azerbaijan, who fled to Israel in 1931 – was killed in 1948 while working to defend the kibbutz from Egyptian and Jordanian soldiers. Shimshon was killed when the armored vehicle he was in was hit by enemy mortar fire.

After his father was killed, Hagai, his mother and his two siblings, Rafi and Raya, were evacuated to central Jerusalem before then moving to Atlit, near Haifa. There, a number of former residents of Ramat Rachel joined up with people from Kibbutz Ein Hayam and together in 1950 they established Kibbutz Ein Carmel.

Hagai grew up in Ein Carmel and married his childhood sweetheart, Ayala. When Hagai was 23, he, his wife and their oldest son left the kibbutz over his opposition to the communal sleeping arrangements for children.

The family settled in Atlit and later Haifa before moving to Jerusalem in 1974, where they lived for 18 years.

Hagai played soccer throughout his life, including with the Hapoel Haifa professional team. After moving to Jerusalem, he worked as an assistant to Uzi Baram, who at the time was the Jerusalem-area director of the Labor party, and later became an MK and minister.

Hagai then worked as the manager of the Hapoel Jerusalem soccer team, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later he worked as a branch manager in an insurance firm, and his last job before retirement was as the manager of the northern region for the Mivtachim insurance company.

After his divorce from his first wife, Hagai married Yaffa, and they settled in Rishon Lezion.

“He had extreme integrity,” Baram, who remained friends with Hagai over the years, said in a memorial video released by the Sport5 channel. “I would say the word ‘purity’ is the word that best describes his character, and that’s how he was all his life, until the day he died.”

Mishele Dayan, who was a player on the team when Hagai was the manager, said in the video that Hagai was “a man with a tremendous personality, a mensch, very assertive… we lost a very dear man. The impact he left on Israeli soccer and on Hapoel Jerusalem was very significant.”

His family wrote in the state obituary that “Hagai was an impressive man, always meticulous in his appearance and calm and collected. Those close to him knew his sense of humor, and on occasion, when he was moved, would even see a tear on his well-preserved face.”

“Hagai’s life was full of adventures with his wife and friends, with reading books and watching the news and sports. Through the power of self-discipline, he never gave up on his daily morning walk,” his family said, also noting his ability to write beautifully: “His grandchildren will forever remember” the birthday messages he would write for them “and the stories he made up in his head and told them.”

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